12 for 12 Olympic campaign gets off to a great start as Lennon-Ford posts Olympic A standard

13/06/2012

A number of Birchfield's 12 for 12 athletes, sponsored by AGA Rangemaster, have started their campaign to be part of Team GB at the 2012 Olympics. At the recent Loughborough International, the performance of the day came from Eden Francis in the shot where she threw a personal best of 17.24m. Tom Parsons and Louise Hazel had solid performances in the high jump and 100m hurdles, both winning their events in season best performances. Tom cleared 2.25m to win the competition and Louise posted a time of 13.57 in winning the hurdles race.

Other Birchfield athletes were also in action at this high quality meeting, most notably Dannish Walker-Khan who won the 200m in a new pb of 21.07 secs. Jarryd Dunn was 2nd in the 400m as was Joel Fearon in the 100m A race, his first race following injury. The U20 hurdles race saw Jake Porter in 2nd and Madeline Smith running another pb of 14.38 which puts her 6th in the UK rankings.

In the field events Scott Rider was first in the shot and Ryan Spencer-Jones was 3rd and there were 2 podium places in the women's triple jump with Laura Samuel in 2nd and Sinead Gutzmore in 3rd and finally Sally Peake who won the pole vault.

Luke Lennon-Ford, one of Birchfield's 12 for 12 sponsored by AGA, ran the Olympic A standard in the 400m in Geneva on 2 June. Luke, originally from Erdington is now based in London with his coach Linford Christe. His new personal best time of 45.23 puts him third on the Power of 10 rankings and means he will go into the Olympic trials contesting for an individual place in the 400m as well as a place in the 4 x 400m relay squad.